CRYPT NEWSLETTER 44
August -- September 1997
Editor: Urnst Kouch (George Smith, Ph.D.)
http://www.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/other/crpt44.htm
[...]
PERVERSIONS OF SCIENCE
Recently, US News & World Report featured a cover story on the weird
world of non-lethal weaponry. Regular Crypt Newsletter readers know
this translates to electromagnetic pulse, infrasound, ultrasound, and
other assorted perversions of science which military planners and
futurists dream of weaponizing.
In a fascinating development, the US News & World Report article cited
a Huntington Beach, California, company called Scientific Applications
and Research Associates (SARA).
The company is said to lurk in an industrial park -- developing weapons
to turn your bowels to mush. Company CEO Parviz Parhami implied his
company's inventions might work in anywhere from two to ten years.
They're ". . . just one more tool," he screeched for US News. "Like any
tool, I suppose this can be abused." Parhami suggested they be used for
humane purposes but the story did not vigorously indicate what these
might be.
Interestingly, SARA has a Website (www.sara.com). Cryptic and brief, the
company uses a clutch of clever euphemisms for its development work in
what it dubs "Future Technologies."
"SARA is engaged in advanced technology development for future
applications . . . new objectives are emerging that include limited
effects technology (LET), low collateral damage, incremental denial and
area/perimeter monitoring and defense," reads the site. This refers to
the development of infrasound guns and resonators for use against people,
and the site continues, "Included is our development of compact, high
power infrasound generators for the US Army as a potential (Crypt News
emphasis added) non-lethal weapon . . . "
Further, the company brochure states its interest in the development of
"compact high energy laser technologies," another area with a non-lethal
spin-off: the controversial blinding laser. And, no discussion would be
complete without the mention of electric rays: "Other SARA future
technology areas include electromagnetic pulse weapons, directed/triggered
electric discharges and intense low frequency electromagnetic fields."
All of these things are listed under "future technologies" and
"development." There is no insistence they even exist. However, one
product that SARA does say it sells, and Crypt News is not making this up,
is Restaurant Master, software designed to help you run your restaurant
business.
If you are a computer programmer or hardware engineer in need of work,
SARA is interested in hearing from you. Of course, you will have to be an
American citizen. And it would be helpful if you already had multiple
security clearances for working on Department of Defense black projects.
In addition, you will have to have the mental agility -- or lack of it --
to be able to work for supervisors who can rationalize the development of
restaurant managing software and potential weapons for inducing
prostrating or possibly lethal diarrhea in civilians, all under one roof.
And if this is not sufficiently "mad scientist" to suit your fancy,
consider that U.S. News and World Report interviewed the Pentagon's
Charles Swett -- who is not a scientist -- but who nevertheless was
attributed by the publication to maintain that the military plans "to
conduct human testing with lasers and acoustics in the future . . . and
that the testing will be constrained and highly ethical."
If true, Crypt News poses these questions:
If the projects are classified in the Pentagon's black budget how can it be
assured that human testing will adhere to informed consent laws and protocols
for conducting research on human subjects? As an exercise, review historical
examples of unethical military testing of weapons on human subjects -- for
example: Japanese testing of microbial pathogens on prisoners of war during
World War II, U.S. military testing of poison gas on soldiers during World
War II, U.S. military testing of the effects of atomic bomb detonations near
troops in Operation Tumbler Snapper (1952), Operation Upshot Knothole (1953),
the Smoky Test Shot (1957) and the Galileo Test Shot (1957).
And if a soldier or volunteer is injured or killed while being a test subject
for such a classified research project, what assurances exist -- other than
the blandishments of Pentagon-Charles-Swett-types -- that proper scientific
overview by the unbiased was conducted, or that his family will even be able
to find out what occurred during a particular experiment?
[...]
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See also
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=bea8mr%2445m%241%40slb9.atl.mindspring.net
for more info on Charles Swett.
--
Mind Control: TT&P ==> http://www.datafilter.com/mc
Home page: http://www.datafilter.com/alb
Allen Barker